If you don’t believe me, watch this.

—tjmHolden

Dear All,

It’s been a long time since I’ve written home. Sorry. It’s on account of the two manuscripts that have kept me scratching my head every waking hour for the last ten months. But they are both at the point where I can get them out to publishers; hence, I have begun to hear strains of the road’s siren call, beckoning, once more.

Today I’m holed up in a hotel somewhere in South Korea and so, thought I’d catch you up. Even though it is a two hour flight into Incheon from my abode, one country over, it took me about twelve hours to get from my apartment in Sendai, over to Daejeon, which is where I’m sitting now. For those of you who haven’t traveled here—do! it’s still all good—but just so that you know: the airport in Incheon is a one hour limo ride outside Seoul; and Daejeon—known as South Korea’s Tech City—is another hour by train to the south. So if you are coming this way, be prepared for some seat time.

It may not be for everyone, but if you are a fan of live music, in general, and U2, in particular, and you are not able to get to The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on Sunday evening (8:30 p.m., Pacific Time; 4:30 a.m. in Paris; 12:30 p.m. in Tokyo), you can have the next best thing: watch the boys from Dublin, streamed live on YouTube. It is the first such streamed concert on YouTube and best of all . . . it’s free.

The Los Angeles Times has coverage here, indicating that, thanks to novel stage configuration based on the design of Los Angeles airport’s Flight Control Tower, seating capacity has been increased by 20%. It will be the largest attendance in the Rose Bowl since the 1994 World Cup.

—tjmHolden

Source: IMDB	Source: IMDB

Okay, I admit. Bad title. Possibly even one of my all-time worsts. If I’d had more than three seconds to work it through, I might have come up with something better.

On the other hand, given that I haven’t had a lot of sleep . . . maybe not. The reason that I haven’t had much sleep is that I was up late last night. And I was up late last night because I was doing what always gets me in trouble: following my impulses.

The impulse that deprived me of my mental faculties is probably inferable from the entry title, and if not the title, then the pictures above.

Basically, what I did with my late night was watch the two incarnations of “Pelham 1-2-3”—the stellar 1974 version, and the widely-panned 2009 redo. Actually, I wouldn’t sharpen up the ole butcher knife over the latter, but, if comparison is going to be involved, there can be little doubt that the earlier version is a far superior product. I actually would encourage those of you who haven’t yet seen the Denzel Washington-John Travolta remake to do so—as long as you promise on the spirit of your evaporated last paycheck that at some point you’ll find a way to see the Walter Matthau-Robert Shaw (Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, Jerry Stiller) original.

They really don’t make movies like that any more. And maybe if they studied more of them, they would realize they should.

—tjmHolden

I was recently in Chicago, where I guess I hadn’t been in about twenty, twenty-five years. I had an interesting experience—maybe more like a revelation—walking around. It is hard to account for, but in the few days that I was there, I couldn’t stop seeing everything as points, lines, shapes, regularized squiggles. It was unlike any other experience I’d ever had during any of my many previous peripatetic promenades.

To the point where everything became geometric form. I was suddenly seemingly inhabiting a world designed by the precise sensibilities of Euclid.

—tjmHolden

I mentioned in my last post “Hell, I have a great shot of a bird sitting alone in a rice field when my train stopped on the tracks just outside of Narita station. It’s an amazingly good shot . . .”

Just in case anyone would be tempted to think that I have the flair for exaggeration, or possibly, a lack of objectivity and perspective when it comes to things myself and my work . . . well, judge for yourselves.

More fantastic, first rate photography to follow . . . bank on it!

—tjmHolden